


Lighthouse Through a Dark Storm

by RavenAurelieChoiseau



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Bethlam Royal Hospital, Caring, Childhood Friends, Daydreaming, Declarations Of Love, Doctor/Patient, Drug Withdrawal, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Imagined Kiss, Light Angst, London, Lost Love, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Missing someone, Nurturing, Oblivious, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Drug Addiction, Pining, References to Addiction, References to Drugs, Slow Burn, Taking Care of Someone, Unrequited Crush, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-01-30 18:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21432625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenAurelieChoiseau/pseuds/RavenAurelieChoiseau
Summary: The doctor takes a large, savory breath with parted lips. Fights the sudden urge to place a damp kiss upon Victor’s pallid cheek.What am I doing?  He catches himself before he actually does it.But Jesus now the seed of whatever this was has been planted._Henry is helping Victor go through withdrawal. In the process Henry realizes something important yet painful.Victor gives in to repressed feelings.
Relationships: Victor Frankenstein & Dr. Henry Jekyll, Victor Frankenstein/Dr. Henry Jekyll
Comments: 37
Kudos: 124





	1. Tea and Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a Frankethan fic but I've been watching Penny again and I want to make it Jekyll and Victor. Long live love!

A watched pot does not boil. Indeed, the kettle is still cold. While the fire licks the copper warm, Henry places the dry teapot near the heat, the leaves within tepefying.

“Victor, would you like some tea? I’ve brought some from India. Double infusion. Think you can stomach some, old man?”  
In a cot across the room, a small form resembling Victor Frankenstein trembles from under several blankets.  
He’s thinner than he’s ever been. Some would say nothing but a silhouette. In reality, this is just the grief and the narcotics. Both devour soul and body without discrimination.  
  
Victor’s chapped lips form the ghosts of words. “Yes, thank you. I’ll try.” His voice is croupy with thickened saliva and exhaustion.

  
The young doctor crosses the tiny room in two-and-a-half stretches of well-dressed pant leg. He squats down, palming the side of Victor’s head. A pained gaze falls upon the man before him. Henry’s scrutiny is half professional inspection and half the bitten lip and deep inhalation of a concerned friend.  
  
Dear God he looks like one of the cadavers he’d be working on in his laboratory, Jekyll thinks. Skin like an insect’s husk, pale like an old bar of soap.  
_Poor Victor. Why didn’t you call on me sooner?  
_  
Smoothing over the damp curls on Victor’s forehead, Henry’s free hand pulls the wool higher and tugs it under his patient’s stubbled chin. That’s when Victor accidentally shifts, the rough of his thirsty mouth grazing Henry’s soft flesh. Henry gasps at the touch, a feeling of sudden emptiness taking over his fluttering stomach. It's as if a thousand moths have been released all at once and have taken flight within him.  
Henry jerks to attention. _What’s all this?_  
  
The doctor takes a large, savory breath with parted lips. Fights the sudden urge to place a damp kiss upon Victor’s pallid cheek.  
_What am I doing?_ He catches himself before he _actually_ does it.  
But Jesus now the seed of whatever _this _was has been planted.   
  
Victor’s teeth chatter, bringing on a whole new wave of shivers, while Henry feels like he's boiling in his skin. Victor's red-rimmed eyes fly open in distress.   
“Is it going to rain, Henry? Why such a wet chill to my bones?!”   
  


**Rain.** While he was still pursuing his experiments, it was Victor’s obsession. Lightning, to be precise. The spark necessary to give life and the ability to harness it literally consumed Victor. He would open the window each morning and smell the air with pronounced sniffs and flared nostril. Victor would scrutinize the sky and wonder if the ashen color was a permanent part of London’s temperament or a sign of impending inclement weather.  
That was then, of course. When he was still pursuing the dark art of reanimation. All his failings have taught him better now.  
They are burned onto his heart lest he forget.  
Pyrography for sinners.  
  
Dr. Jekyll, shaken from his reverie, angles his head away. “Don’t think so, brother. The sky is clear. That’s still just the morphine withdrawal. Are you hungry, Victor? Is your appetite coming back? I can make you something if you can wait a few minutes for the tea to seep.”  
Clearing his throat, Henry swallows hard and pats over covers what he surmises to be the cap of Victor’s bony knee.  
Henry rises nervously, nearly knocking over a chair, and walks back to the stove.  
  


**Waiting**. That word strikes a match in the pitch darkness for the ailing physician. More light on the who than the why or the when, though.  
Victor has waited for many things. For many people. Some he doesn’t know will ever appear again.  
  
I have about as much control over my sentiments as I do the weather, he concludes.

“What do you say, old boy? Can you stomach some mash?” Henry asks, his worn visage peeking over his shoulder. Victor isn’t paying attention. His glossy gaze is drawn past the chamber pot and the bucket, to the drawer near his bed. That’s where the revolver is wrapped in cloth.  
  
It still smells like him. Like Ethan. Something left of his touch there, but more than anything there’s the scent. That is all Victor has of him now.  
A cramp builds in his belly at the thought and he grimaces. The fourth day of his detox has begun. Victor doesn’t know if the craving is worse than the longing. For both the drug and for Ethan. Or is Ethan his new drug?!

Victor can live without morphine. He doesn’t think he can live without Ethan.

“Victor, the tea is ready,” says a voice. Victor loses sense of his surroundings. Henry stands by the door and something is happening with the kettle but it’s just fuzzy movements perceived from the corner of his strained eye.  
  
Has he lost the plot? Henry wonders as he observes from afar. Victor blinks and sees someone who isn’t there. A silly grin paints itself on Victor’s glistening face.  
Ethan. Dear Mr. Chandler. Oh the sweet longing. He hasn’t seen him in… too long.  
Where is he?! Is he in London? Will he ever gaze upon his soft cocoa eyes again?  
  
And yet again, aren’t we just the ever living ghosts of what once was?! Victor thinks as he smiles at nothing. It quickly fades as his skin prickles over with another convulsion.  
  
Henry pretends to busy himself with the pouring. Maybe Victor’s fever has gone up again and he’s delusional. He makes a mental note to check when he carries the cup over.

There is a time machine in Victor’s mind and it takes him back. To the day they met. To the dark hair that fell to Ethan’s strong shoulders, just barely grazing the top of his frock. Honey eyes that wrinkled around the edges when he smiled. The accent that molded Victor’s sharp-cornered name into something soft as it rolled off his tongue “Docterrr Frankenstein...”  
  
“FRANKENSTEIN!” Henry yells to no avail. 

Victor’s fingers play with the scratchy blanket in his clutch.  
When did he fall in love? What was it exactly that...   
It was the little glint in Ethan’s eyes when they argued the first time, that is when Victor hated and loved him simultaneously. Who knows why it took him so long to understand what the light lurch in his stomach meant whenever Ethan entered a room. It was the farthest thing from disdain.  
  
God, I wasted so much time, he decides.

Victor inhales with rib-expanding effort. He can almost taste it on his tongue, the desire. Now he is back in the basement. Knees weak. Why did he think Ethan smelled of tack oil and pistol powder when in reality, as he held him tight and steady that time he taught him to shoot, he scented deeply of spice and root?! Intoxicatingly so. 

“Victor!” Henry’s had enough. He’s been standing over the bed with a trembling cup of hot beverage for 2 minutes.  
“Not the time to be daydreaming doctor! Victor, you there old boy?”  
  


Victor glances over to the source of the voice, blinking away the distraction and the photophobia. “Sorry, Henry. I lost myself in thought for a moment. Pardon me.”

Two dark brows meet completing a question mark. “Not all there, Victor. Old boy if I didn’t know better I’d say you were smitten with someone. I haven’t seen you smile in days.”

Rose is not blush enough to match Victor’s renewed cheek color. And if blind hope had a shade it’d be Dr. Jekyll’s flushed skin tone in this moment.   
Swallowing the tea being served to him with a spoon, Victor rebukes the notion. “Don’t be absurd, Jekyll. You know I’m dedicated to the pursuit of science.”

The doctor clucks his tongue at his colleague. “Please. Man does not live on science alone, Victor.” _I should know. _“You’ve got your eye on some pretty young thing no doubt.”  
The sigh that follows is louder than the suggestion itself.

Victor’s composition could match the color of the curtains. Pretty young thing indeed. Pretty and young...but no fragile thing. So far from it.

“Perhaps… but it’s hopeless. The person in question is ... overseas. Uncertain is their return. It would be absurd to assume anything, let alone that they might reciprocate my feelings lest they make their way back.”

The young chemist grins. Despite his own conflicted (and unexpected!) feelings, he can discern the depth of Victor’s. Whoever this person might be (and it doesn’t take a Scotland Yard detective to uncover it’s not Henry), he deserves happiness.  
“Though you may suffer, it’s nice to see your soul has found an ember. Hold on to that, Victor. You never know when it will spark into a flame.”

Victor scoffs, more alive in expression than he’s been in weeks a contrast to his statements. “Were it so, Henry, one would need the kindling and flint. Hard to start a fire with only a lump of coal.”

Jekyll sits up, dropping the spoon into the liquid. “Whoever this person is, Victor, if you were brave enough to let him go… you’re brave enough to let him back in.”

  
The trembling has subsided. A bit of color is returning to Victor’s complexion and love has flooded his heart. Only one person could truly put the light back into his eyes and a skip back into his weary heart.

"Can you do me a favor, Henry?"   
  
Jekyll straightens himself and gives a toss of the head. Anything for you, Victor. He means it. _Anything. _  
“What can I do for you? Tell me.”

A softness creeps into Victor's voice, almost like it's been coated in raw honey. “Henry, can you find me Ethan Chandler?” 


	2. Wheel of Fortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been 14 months since Frankenstein's detox. Victor and Henry have teamed up in a research project at the hospital... but they get more than they bargained for when a strange patient presents them with an opportunity to make a breakthrough.  
The two physicians are not expecting to be treating a case like this... just like they don't expect to fall in love with each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally decided what I wanted to do with this fic. It's all about Jekyll and Victor's love. :)

The stone floor is cracked, the crevices spider-webbed with mildew. It catches his eye because it’s where the drops are hitting.  
Something trickles from a leaky pipe in the corner.  
Plop.  
Plop.  
Plop.  
  
Victor can time his heartbeat to it. He stares upward at the spot, nostrils flaring to sniff the air. Has the rot gotten into the walls, too, _or just his soul_?  
This infernal place will eat him alive one day, he thinks.  
  
“Ruth Caroline Martin, aged 23, she is presenting what I’m going to assume is some ailment of the blood…”

Dr. Henry Jekyll flips through a stack of papers that billow in his hand as he speaks.  
He’s relaying the tales of his newest, most interesting patient, to his closest (and arguably only) friend.

“Victor, are you paying attention, old boy?”  
  
His sharp gaze drops from Victor’s watery eyes to his plump lips. Henry licks his own in suit, summoning a deep breath.  
A truth catches in his throat and he swallows it down.  


Jekyll’s affection for the man has not faded since he helped him detox. If anything, the excitement of Dr. Frankenstein joining his research- personally and professionally priceless- still makes his heart ache under his breast.  
They’ve been spending most of their time together, he and his physician friend, for the better part of 14 months.  
  
Henry cannot take all the credit for this spin of the wheel of fate. After nearly a year of searching, the quest to locate Ethan Chandler only hit dead ends. And thus, little by little, Victor was forced to make room, push the memory of Ethan out as it fought for space in his being and his heart.   
Emptying himself of the pining and the angst was the only key to survival. It had begun to consume him once more when his body was purified of the opiates and his mind cleared of its fog…  
The quiet longing had almost pushed him back to the needle. If it hadn’t been for Henry…  
  
The purge was timely and necessary, leaving in its wake the stark realization in Victor Frankenstein that what crept in to occupy the grey, dusty corners of his heart… was his tried and true companion.  
His pulse raced that much quicker when his colleague even moved the molecules in a room.  
  
“I’m listening, Henry. Please do go on,” Victor snaps his attention back to the task at hand.  
“You were saying something about a blood ailment.”  
  
Another thing that has transformed within him: Victor’s thirst for knowledge has shifted from the command of life and death… to the workings of the human mind.   
Victor had always been this way, even Henry remembered it so. As curious now as he was as a boy (and then a young physician).  
Jekyll loved that about him. Still does. Now it’s just one more thing to add to his menagerie of sentiment for the man.   
“Pray, what makes you say that?” Victor muses through the cloth he’s clasping to his face. The stench is pretty foul in this woman’s chamber, though the resident doctors have gotten quite used to it by now.

“Her reaction to the sun, you see… she appears intolerant to it completely.” Henry points to a few lines scribbled on one of the papers, but he can’t quite get the angle right.  
They’re up against the wall of the patient’s cell, with very little room of their own to move about safely. Her chains tether her to the opposite side, though they’re too long, forcing the men to huddle into a corner. (Neither minds the close proximity of their persons. If they were asked about it directly they’d both deny it).  
  
Ruth is not behaving dangerously at all right now, but her appearance is just… unsettling.  
Bloodshot eyes are two withering bluebells fixating them intently. Her hair sheared unevenly to prevent the lice that are rampant in the asylum makes her look truly mad.  
It’s nothing out of the ordinary, that she’s greatly disheveled. After all, these are the appalling conditions of most patients here.  
What baffles Victor is that the nightgown which hangs off her bony shoulders like rags on a scarecrow is completely filthy.  
How on earth it got that way is a mystery. Ruth cannot move save more than a few inches in either direction, and so she just stands idly by, ravenous gaze boring into them.  
“Please, I need blood…” she whispers. “Blood…”  
  


Victor scrutinizes the paperwork, but can’t discern what’s written. Finally Henry lifts his black brow, pointing to his own arm. He taps it, and indicates the woman with a lift to his smooth chin.  
  
Victor takes the hint, glancing over to see what the patient’s corresponding arm is manifesting.  
How odd… it seems bloody, but minus the blood?!  
Definitely some form of rash, he immediately surmises, though if it were due to an external source (the sun being one possibility), or from an ailment poisoning her system, he could not say with certainty.

“Most remarkable,” he whispers to his colleague. “She isn’t in the sun currently, and the light from the single window spills on a perfect square onto the floor alone.”

“I assure you I saw it myself, Victor. That injury was not there, until her arm was exposed to the sun.”

“Well she must have _something…_”

“I’ll have to get the staff to redo those chains it seems.” Henry finally admits after about five minutes of Victor trying to tilt his head for a better view.  
The other doctor is worried that his friend is just foolish enough to try to dash over there and take a skin sample, so he’s made the remark to put his foot down in the way.

  
“Yes,” Victor nods in agreement. “That’s probably our best course of action. I’d really like to be present for that, see if you can get her under, or else hold her down.”

“Of course.” Henry understands. Victor wants that sample, and it’s imperative to do so soon.  
For the moment, however, they have nothing else to go on besides what bare research (and their own eyes) can tell them.

“I’ll arrange for it,” Jekyll scribbles into his file as the women continues begging for blood, shaking her chains like a disturbed spirit.  
  
The men leave then, following the corridor back to the new laboratory they’ve been sharing.  
Victor’s joining his research shows how closely this case ties into what the man is already interested in, and judging by his reaction to the woman, it’s meeting exactly with what Jekyll hopes to pursue.  
Sharing the same space and even more time together is a pleasant bonus. It can only aid their “friendship” growing deeper.  
  
In fact, Victor doesn’t say a word as he starts unpacking boxes, a vivid blush staining his cheeks.  
Henry feels a smile crawl across his face as he assists him, desire burning a spot in his belly.

To distract himself, Jekyll focuses on the equipment Victor has brought with him. It’s as strange to him as the woman is to Victor. Victor notices him studying it just like he’s been scrutinizing the patient: with wonder.  
Victor reaches out, delicately taking a piece out of his hand.  
When their fingers accidentally graze, the nearness kindles a feeling of fire.  
  


“Sorry, it’s…” he’s nervous. Not quite ready to trust anyone else with his equipment… or his heart.  
Victor ignores the latter and explains away the former: It’s what he used to give life to his creations, a tool that gave him ultimate power. (And he isn’t too quick to share the extent of that sin with someone else. Henry is only privy to a part of his shame).  
“That piece has to be held upright, just like so. It was difficult to make, you see. It’s nearly one of a kind.”

Henry seems to comprehend, but then reaches into the box again and pulls out a jar of liquid.  
“What kind of fluid is this, might I ask?” His brow furrows as he holds it up to the pale lighting, the substance inside sloshing as he does so.

Victor scratches his head, trying to figure out some way to break it to him. The jar he is holding contains the spinal fluid of several corpses. It’s pretty old actually- he’d collected it during his days at the morgue.

Henry’s murky eyes knit tightly in puzzlement as he looks it over. Victor thinks it’s odd that he can’t recognize spinal fluid like that, but then again, they did have widely different fields of study.

  
“Spinal fluid.” He says with a smirk, waiting to see his reaction.

Henry nearly drops the jar.

Victor catches it in time, stifling a giggle as he does so. “I didn’t think you so squeamish, Doctor.”  
He walks away with this item as well, patting his beloved jar of spinal fluid and carrying it safely away.

“I’m not. I’m just… ” Henry’s wrinkled forehead hasn’t moved an inch.  
Swiveling on his heel, Victor looks over his shoulder coyly, his long lashes fluttering. He bites deliciously into his lower lip.  
“Squeamish.”  
  
“Oh shut up, you!” Henry exclaims, averting his gaze. Secretly he loves this banter.

“You know me, Henry. My work tends to get very _anatomical._” He says it like it’s trivial. And an invitation.  
  


“I remember, Victor. I remember.” He has stopped digging in the other man’s boxes, worried he’ll pick up a severed head at this point.

Victor’s face creases into a grin before responding, seeing the other man has decided instead to rest his hands on the box instead of opening it. A good thing too, as he’s pretty sure THAT is the one containing the severed head.

It’s a shrunken one of course, he isn’t a complete monster. Something Sir Malcolm Murray had given him from Africa.

“Oh heavens, Victor!” Henry shoots up.  
Feeling his eyes bore into him from the other side of the room, Victor can’t help but stare at his feet.

“I have a taste for the macabre.” He says shyly, shooting him back a gleaming smile. He does like Henry, states the obvious. His curiosity, however much it seems to be throwing him off currently, begins to focus further on his young partner.  
It’s exciting for once, to have a friend to share his passions with. Perhaps it can lead to more eventually.

_

When the lab has been set up, and the research begins, it becomes clear to both men that the project is going to be on a far bigger scale than initially intended. Neither mind, for both feel a deep personal satisfaction not just with the work they’re doing, but with finally having someone there to do it with.  
They’re unique souls like that- just happen to work well together.  
  


It’s then that Henry decides to open up to his friend about where such funding might come from.

Lord Hyde.  
Henry feels that because he’s committed to his father’s wishes for his whole life, he’s entitled to be funded to partake in exactly what his father had decreed.  
In Henry’s eyes, he would see fit to aid in this project- especially if he thought it would help make a name for his son, and eventually, his entire family’s legacy.  
The men are looking at a breakthrough as well. A whole new condition that could lend information into the concept of allergies and blood disorders alike. 

It might make both of their careers, who knows,… if they can get the funding.  
  


Henry is prompt to set up a meeting with him, and is pleasantly surprised to see his father open to it. He insists Victor come along- having a partner in the research vouching for its importance would keep it from looking like a silly boy’s venture. 

  
So one rainy afternoon, the carriage pulls up to a monster of a mansion, an old house the good Dr. Frankenstein can’t ever imagine Henry coming to own one day.

He correctly pictures the inside along with the stern and powerful looking man who’s sitting behind a grand hand-carved desk.  
Lord Hyde does not disappoint.

He accepted the meeting in a surprisingly kindly-worded letter for an obviously curt and stern individual. But now, in front of his disgrace of a son, there’s only the curt individual.  
Lord Hyde doesn’t apparently think much of hearing out his halfbreed, who performs for his father like a monkey. With the aid of Victor, they put on a glorious show to advertise their shared work.  
The man, however, doesn’t show one bit of interest in what his son has to say.  
_

Later on from within the carriage, Victor makes an observation to his brooding friend.  
“Well, he shouldn’t be around long to thwart your plans at any rate.”  
Frankenstein tries to broach the subject cautiously. However horrible the man seemed, he’s still Henry’s father, despite the rude manner with which they’d been received.  
  


“Oh, worry not old boy. I clocked a heart condition years ago. Might be worth it now. Do you know I bribed the cook with my allowance to feed him lots of butter? It’s just a matter of time, brother, before I get the land you see. And _all_ that comes with it. The one mistake my father made, despite breeding with a local who bore him a half-Indian son, was never having another child _here_.”  
At that, Henry belly laughs, sending Victor a wink.

Victor can only laugh along with him, glad that Henry obviously shares his dark sense of humor. (And also relieved he doesn’t have to break it to him that the man probably won’t be long for this world. He’d coughed all through their presentation, and sat hunched over, sweating profusely as if in chest pains. Probably already having a minor heart attack before their very eyes!).

After his father’s rejection, Dr. Jekyll resumes work with a fervent gusto. He can’t get them money, he resolved, but he can get them results in another way.

And also Victor wants results, he knows this. His friend’s growing frustrations with the project are plain.  
Perhaps Jekyll knows just what will cheer him up?!

The patient, Ruth, had been put under better restraints a week ago, so Henry feels completely safe to enter her room alone.  
Scalpel in one hand, beaker in the other, he walks in a semi-circle around her. She’s still fighting against her restraints, except now she’s hollowed out.  
Empty, like a old snake’s skin. No muscles to speak of, just translucent skin and bone and what looks to be a deformation of her incisors.

They’d been trying to force feed her for days, but she won’t eat. Vomits anything solid or liquid they force down her throat, still ranting about needing human blood.  
  


The most baffling part of this is that it doesn’t seem to be affecting her energy, (or strength) at all. She’d seemed perfectly well-fed when brought in, only two puncture marks on her neck the oddity.  
Henry was sure her lack of eating was due to whatever illness she had, not the other way around. One just doesn’t stop eating for no reason and only craving human blood!  
  


When he’s certain he’s made a mental map of just how far the woman can move, given the new chains, he dares a step forward and lifts the scalpel to her arm. He doesn’t want to be this close to her for any longer than he needs to.

He doesn’t even see it coming when a hard blow takes him from the side.

She’s on him in an instant with a hiss, the doctor on the floor with crossed arms in front of him, trying to block her however he can. It’s as if she’s rabid- trying to bite at his neck.  
He can sense how far back he was in the room, and understood, only too late, that she’d been calculating out the distance since he’d walked in.  
Patients at this stage of hunger were rarely this clever.  
  


“HELP ME! NURSE!” He screams at the top of his lungs, finally grabbing her flailing arms and holding them by her side, only to have her headbutt him, sending his nostrils to meet his brains.

“GET IN HERE!” He tries calling for help once more, near praying anyone could hear him.  
When the blood begins to fountain from his nostrils, she becomes hysterical. As if possessed.  
  
Henry fears for his life, but mercifully the weight of the woman is lifted off him, and he hears a strange pounding, almost a cracking sound.

Henry’s head is spinning from the pain, but he’s able to make out in front of him his partner, Victor, on top of the woman, scalpel in hand. He’s stabbing her repeatedly in the heart.  
  


_

Victor stands up from the body, dropping the scalpel as if he never wielded it all and wiping his crimson-stained hands on his trousers.  
Henry is still on the floor and breathing heavily, a coppery hue caked to his lips and chin.  
  


When the imminent fear for his life has faded, his saucered eyes shoot to Victor. He can’t take them off the panting form in front of him, shirt soaked in red velvet and hands quaking.  
There are specks of arterial splatter on his cheeks and neck, and it takes everything in Henry to not spring up and lick the drops from him with his tongue.  
Amongst all this violence, he’s bloody magnificent. As the fear subsides all heat rushes to swell his genitals.  
Henry’s cock stirs madly.  
  
Then realization settles. What did Victor do? He’d cared so much for the patient, much more than even Henry, and he’d had such hopes… Now they were all dashed because of his silly mistake.

“I’m so sorry Vic-”

“Not a word,” Victor replies with an authority he’s never heard in his tone. It makes Henry’s member stiffen further.  
“I hope this makes you understand just how important my work actually is… _but that you’re more important_.”  
  
Henry’s heart lurches in his chest, and no longer from fright.  
Following his words with a focused tilt to his head, he wipes his palm against the fabric once more and then uses it to help his friend to his feet.

“Is this,” he points to the corpse, “going to be a problem? Because I can take care of it for you. I still have contacts in the morgue. Or we could say she escaped?”

What quick thinking!

“Don’t bother, Victor. She never showed signs of being suicidal before now, but that’s to our knowledge. Nobody would fault us if she was able to do it. They’d have no proof otherwise if he declare the death and dispose of the body. But they _would _fault us for a runaway. That _would_ cause a problem.”  
“Oh, of course.” Victor nods in agreement, digging into his coat pocket for a kerchief. He puts it up to the other man’s face with a tenderness Henry was not expecting, using the other to hold his head steady.

“We should get out of here, and I need to examine you.”

Henry’s heart, which had been stuttering, quickens ever so slightly again.  
He wasn’t the type of man to believe he’d ever be saved by someone other than himself. But… it had just happened. The man he’d already liked and admired (and been attracted to) so much... rescued him in a fervent rage.  
  
A rage he knows too much about. On his own terms and in his own right. But still.  


He can’t_ not_ feel something for him, as he cares so dutifully for his battered face.

Victor, on the other hand, just has one intrusive thought to deal with- that the man sitting in his patient’s chair- apologies- THEIR patient’s chair, is handsome and sexy and breathing warmly against him.  
He’s consciously ignoring that his excuse for touching his silky smooth milk coffee skin is his caring for his wounds. (The doctor’s degree might’ve been worth it for that alone).  
  
The idea sticks with him, and not just the mental image, about how wonderfully the idea of them collaborating as a team just seems to work. (And visions of him and Henry tangled up in bed together were also welcome bedtime stories of late).

-

  
The man bursts into their lab not days later, a grin folding his beautiful face in half.

“It’s happened, brother!”

Victor looks up to see him waving some sort of letter, still unfolded, as if he’d opened it just now as he ran to him.

“What is that?” Victor asks, amused. He really likes seeing him so excited. Like a little boy.

  
“My father- he’s passed on! A heart attack in the middle of the night, the old goat! My day has come!”  
Victor’s pert mouth actually drops. “Well, that’s good news for you I suppose!”  
  
He doesn’t want to sound too excited about a man dying, though he honestly couldn’t care either way. He knows much torture he’d put Henry and his mother through.  
  


Jekyll pours himself into the patient’s chair, leaning back and just enjoying the blissful feeling of total freedom.

“Do you intend to go to the funeral then, Dr. Jekyll. _Or is it Lord Hyde now_?”

“Why it is Lord Hyde to you,” he quips with a wink, “and no, I don’t think I will. I doubt anyone will be there, to be honest. Man had more enemies than hair.”  
Henry jests, looking to him with a sparkle in his dark eyes.  
Victor smiles back, thinking joy is attractive on him. 

It’s a poor man’s celebration, but they’ve not got a lot of time for luncheon.  
The men grab their meager meals from the hospital kitchens and go outdoors for a change from the rot and stink of the hospital.  
Once they’re done eating, the physicians have enough time to relax for a bit. 

“I know my feelings about my father might seem strange to you,” Henry offers.”How I act about him I mean.”  
He brings it up as an afterthought, as they rest on the grasses- a rare bit of green in the otherwise grey and murky city.

“I don’t judge you on that, you know that. My father is no better. And don’t get me started on my brothers,” Victor offers with flitting gaze.  
Under the natural light Henry is even more beautiful.  
  


“I just want to say- that I’m more his creature than even my own. He brought this on himself. By hating me and driving my mother to her death.”

Victor’s head turns to him, the phrasing curious. He didn’t doubt the man had earned every inch the disdain he got. It just seems odd Henry feels the need to bring it up, though people say the strangest things when grieving.

“It was he that wanted me to be a doctor, you know,” Jekyll runs a hand through his long, silky locks. It makes Victor swallow hard, think what that might be like.  
“Wanted me to have a career, earn my own living. I chose what I thought would make him the most proud, what I’d hoped would finally have him see me as his son.”  
  


Victor lies flat on his back on the ground, and Henry sits up against a stone, leaning into him. “I’m not wicked, Victor. Please don’t think me wicked. All of this… this was about survival.”  
  
Victor has never been this interested in a human life before, not for its humanness, and it’s liveliness. But because it’s in his friend’s desperate tone and porcelain doll eyes that he realizes what he’s been denying is true: he is falling for him.  
He recognizes it’s terrible. That the man next to him is being bombarded with all sorts of emotions and the grief, whether he admits it or not, is gnawing away at him… and here Victor is trying to stifle the urge to reach out and kiss him.  
  
“I’m glad I have you, Victor,” Henry whispers. “I have… I have no one else.”  
Henry avoids the vale gaze that glosses over at his words. His companion nips into his lower lips with his bunny teeth and that’s when something in Henry snaps. Softens. He has never felt a relationship with anyone else as being so perfectly fitting for him.  
  


“Are you always so sentimental, Henry, or am I special?” Victor breathes before he knows it’s spilled from his lips.  
Henry thinks he’s joking, but when he looks over he finds the doctor’s expression completely serious.  
“Good and evil are braided. I think you and I are both bound on a wheel of pain at times.”  
The look Victor is saving just for him spears through him.  
“The one thing that gives me reprieve is having you by my side in these adventures, Victor. Special you are. What else defines this, brother, I don’t know its term.”  
  
Frankenstein picks at the grass. His ribs can’t contain the deep breath he ingests.  
“I don’t think the word matters.” Frankenstein says it softly, with meaning. He’s failing miserably to keep his focus on scuffed shoes lest he do something in public worthy of scandal.

  
“No, I really feel it does, matter, Victor. To me it does.” The warm hand that clasps his shoulder squeezes it.

_

Dr. Frankenstein waits nearly a week to speak to him about funding. Discussing the outright cruelty of the man to allow his suffering son to grieve was one thing, but discussing the money he’d be leaving behind was another. Jekyll knows what he’s about before he even opens his mouth.

“Yes, we’re still going through some paperwork,” he confesses with some annoyance. “But it shouldn’t be long for the funding now.” The lie on his lips makes him turn away.  
  
Victor understands. He’d hated the man, but he probably wasn’t celebrating too hard the way they’d received the promise of this money.  
He resolves not to bring it up again for the time being.

A couple of weeks pass, however, and Victor is eager. Doesn’t want to wait forever, even though it seems Henry, in all his previous haste, is willing to take that long.

After some time, it almost seems he’s leading his partner on, even when it comes to researching.

Henry falls back in the work, and even steps away from Victor on a social level. His presence at the lab is scarce at best.

Only when he hears a few of the nurses speaking of the lavish party that had been held at Hyde Manor does Victor step in to confront his friend.

  
“I’m sorry,” it wasn’t a great start for Henry’s explanation, not with the shifting gaze and the strained tone. But Victor tries to hear him out as best he can.  
“I just don’t know if I care about it anymore.” Henry smiles his words and that’s his first error.

  
Victor deflates, gutted. The rag he’s holding in his hand disappears inside his clenched fist.

“There was a time when you would risk your life for your incurable curiosity. Or is that no longer enough for you, _LORD HYDE_?!” Victor spits, beside himself.  
  
He’s angry, and rightfully so. Yet Victor can’t deny that all he was feeling now was primarily rooted in sorrow for the friendship lost, and a grief of his own for the realization, perhaps much too late, that he’s fallen head over heels for his friend.  
  
After having lost Ethan… now Henry, too?  
  
Henry stands with his hands limp at his sides, lower lip trembling. He tries to gather thought but the disappointment in Frankenstein’s face is a dagger in his heart.  
“You know what hurts the most, Henry? That just a fortnight ago you told me I was the only reprieve this world had gifted you. And you know what I didn’t say?! _That you are the same for me_! I’m just too hurt now to believe any of that was true. I think you’re a selfish, wicked man.”  
  
Victor doesn’t wait after he finishes his phrase. With fresh tears brimming in his marble eyes he grabs his jacket and exits the lab, slamming the door shut behind him.  
At least marching out of there, with his dignity in tow, if not his heart, proved easier than he thought.  
  


The words sting Henry deeply. His affection for Victor- no, his LOVE… is still important to him.  
He was no one before he became Lord Hyde, and whoever he finds at his side now is only there for title or proxy privilege. Victor’s made him realize how foolish he’s been- how the sudden wealth has gone to his head.  
  
Every word Victor uttered is right.   
He wagers another thing: the sentiment behind Victor’s anger, all too well known to Henry, stems from something that he realizes now unite he and Victor.  
As soon as he’s outside the hospital he hails a carriage.  
_

Dr. Frankenstein sits on his tiny cot, closed upon himself as he sobs into open palms. He knows he’ll have to go back to being on his own now. Everyone he’s cared for has gone: Vanessa, Malcolm.  
Ethan. His gaze flits to the drawer where Ethan’s pistol still lies wrapped in oil cloth. His scent still pervading the metal.  
Dear God what has he done with his life?!  
  
It’s been the slowly revealing knowledge over the past weeks that he can’t help but wonder if he’s running out of time.  
Will Victor ever find love?  
  
What a frail and pathetic creature he is. Honestly, the body-rocking cries only accentuate what he’s already been feeling: he’s done his share of fighting for it.  
He’s done.

Not a few weeks ago he’d claimed that Henry was only going through a rough patch. That he’d come around.

He’d never entertained it’d be possible… the idea of ever having to come back here to this rundown place, it feels like a fall from grace. The lab where he’d been sleeping at the hospital had windows and a wide cot. Hot water and a laundry.  
It was filled with hope- promise for better things. And Henry.  
  


So you can imagine his shock, when he hears frantic knocking on his door. The sight of Lord Henry Hyde bursting through the tired timber of his little studio with strained breath. 

  
“Victor,” he pants, expression stricken. “I apologize Victor, but… I couldn’t see how we could have continued the project without her and… then came the affairs of the manor” he lifts a hand up as he speaks, as if trying to drag the words out of his mouth.  
But his words fizzle away, like a balloon deflating, and Victor finds him staring at his feet like he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to finish what he wanted to say.  
  


And then he does. With a head hung low in shame, eyes glossy in want, he sibilates his truth.  
“I meant it. Every word, Victor. I meant it. I am your true friend. Then. Now. Always.”  
The pause is only for effect, pregnant with longing. “And I love you. I think I’ve always loved you, Victor Frankenstein.”  
  
Victor closes the few steps between them in haste, looking so conflicted that Jekyll winces out of fright of being struck.  
Instead, his raised hands grab Henry’s face, crushing him to his mouth in cruel ravishment- tongue stabbing at his gap as if to draw out his precious words’ meaning.  
  
Jekyll didn’t need to say anything more. He had him at “I meant it.”

Henry revels in the kiss, cupping his hand around the curly nape as he drags a hand into the soft chestnut tendrils.  
Victor’s tongue possesses the recesses of his cavity and Henry moans into it. All of it. He wants more- he wants Victor.   
  
“Henry,” Victor pulls off, rubbing a thumb under Henry’s sad doe eyes, which now crinkle up in joy. “I love you, too, Henry.”  
They kiss again. It’s a see-saw, Victor whines to each of Henry’s whimpers.  
  
Of course they love each other. Of course his lifelong friend would understand.  
They are both molded in the same clay: both outcasts in their own right.  
Sorrow embodied, longing personified.  
  


“Come here,” he whispers after Henry when their momentary thirst is sated. “I think given recent tidings I want to be more honest with you, _my love_.”  
Henry’s heart is aflutter at the pet name.

Victor leads him through another door, to the laboratory he already visited before, a long time ago.  
He indicates a box in the center of the room, like a square coffin but open.  
Henry’s eyes widen  
When he removes the blanket covering it, Hyde gasps.  
Inside is their patient, Ruth, looking as dead as ever. Until she opens her eyes, that is.

_To be continued_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does Frankenstein know about vampires? Has he been keeping this secret from Jekyll?
> 
> Hope you liked this chapter and if you haven't read the first one as well, for giving it a chance.  
Please let me know what you think in comments and/or kudos, I love to engage with you.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been MIA for a while. Things in my life have been in real upheaval so thanks for your understanding and patience. It isn't easy to create when you're dealing with multiple major life issues at once.  
On one of the more positive notes: I have to thank my star and light and future husband... AapeliStorm (thelightinthedarkness). We got engaged.  
You truly are my light in the darkness. 
> 
> Some phrases from Tumblr prompts helped this along in creation :)


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